We are skincare chefs at Dulse & Rugosa. We enjoy food- eating and cooking so making handcrafted skincare is a natural transition. For nourishing and hydrating your skin we make both butters and oils. What's the difference?

Butters are whipped and similar to a lovely butter creme frosting on top of a luscious cake.

Body oils are blended and compare to a well crafted salad dressing. Especially if your summers are hot and muggy or while traveling botanical oils are perfect. Why? They don't melt. You can leave them in the car, pop them in a suitcase and keep you summer skin hydrated, moisturized while looking and feeling great.

Body oils are super easy to use. As with most natural skincare products they work best on slightly damp skin. Apply after your shower or bath and give about 5 minutes for the oil to be absorbed. Our Hydrating Body Oil is a careful blend of oils designed to be quickly absorbed into your skin with the added benefits of botanicals indigenous to the coast of Maine.

Our newest product our Face Serum is a fresh bouquet of flowers for your face. Designed for faces that need extra love by way of moisture it's very beneficial when used before bed. If water is one of the first ingredients listed on your current face creme you'll be pleasantly surprised by how little of our Face Serum you need to feel wonderful.

Adding botanical oils to your skincare routine won't just benefit your skin but also your overall well being. Our Hydrating Body Oil is a walk in Acadia National Park, with hand picked botanicals added to each bottle. Rose petals, chamomile and Irish Moss are simply lovely. Take a few extra moments to gently massage oils into your skin and enjoy a few moments of aromatherapy bliss. Sometimes in our busy, stressful lives we forget how beneficial it can be to our overall mental well being to do a small but significant act for ourselves. Make body oils a part of your summer skin care routine and enjoy some happy.

Here in Maine, spring is sometimes really late coming. For months now my Facebook feed has been full of flowers and green grass from my friends further south. But after a week of rain, the sun finally came out and it feels like spring has arrived. The first daffodils have unfolded, the forsythia is blooming, and the symphony of lawnmowers and chainsaws has begun.

For us, the promise of spring started months and months ago, back when there were still snow drifts on the ground. We grow all the botanicals, flowers and herbs that go into our products but we also grow most of the veggies that we eat all season long and through the winter. Back in February the first seeds were sown for this summer’s harvest. Three trays of onions that steadily grew and grew as the days got longer and longer. Four weeks ago we moved them to the outside greenhouse to make room for the trays of flowers, peppers, tomatoes, and herbs. Our living room is filled with green, busting at the seams, as the plants grow. In a few short weeks, once we are sure that the nighttime frost will not return, they will be carefully placed outside and the hard work of summer will begin.

This weekend we celebrated spring by transplanting or potting up the majority of our vegetables and flowers. We cleared off the picnic table, mixed batches and batches of potting soil and rooted through the shed to find the right size pots for our precious babies. As we worked together the barbecue was going in the background with the promise of an amazing dinner once the work was done. One person worked, gently uprooting the small plant, while the other prepared its new home. Once the plant was snugly tucked into its new abode we gently watered them before bringing them back inside. Its still too cold here in Maine for some of tender plants that we grow to live outside…just yet.

It’s a labor of love to grow these plants from seed all the way through till the end. It would be much easier to just buy the tomatoes, the onions, the lavender, the thyme. But that is not what we believe in here at Dulse & Rugosa. We know that the tomatoes that you grow will taste better than any other. In the depths of winter when we reach into the root cellar and pull out our onions, potatoes, and squash something magical happens. Even though its winter a glimmer of summer shows through. The same magic happens each time I go to make our shower shots or our seaweed shampoo bars. I open the glass jar filled with rugosa rose petals and I am back on Gotts Island, next to the ocean reaching for the petals, avoiding the thorns, and breathing in the heavy scents of roses, salt, and the summer sun.

There is a magic in growing plants. And each spring as the small, hard, dry seeds magically turn into bountiful flowers, succulent fruits and verdant vegetables I am reminded of how lucky I am to a part of this process. I cherish spring for its power, magic and most of all the return of GREEN. Spring has finally sprung here in Maine and we are sooo excited.

The "dog days" are here- it's been hot in Maine for 2 weeks so I imagine it must be steaming in other parts of the country. Our skin needs a bit of extra love with heat, humidity and sun exposure.

The Benefits of Scrubs

We all know how important sunscreen is but how do you get it off your skin? After I shower my arms are still covered with a greasy white film. Scrubs are perfect for removing sunscreen film. They gently exfoliate and remove old skin as well as sunscreen and leave your skin looking polished and fresh. At Dulse & Rugosa we add just a bit of nourishing oils so at this time of year it's often not necessary to moisturize after your shower.

Scrubs can be made with sugar or salt, both make excellent exfoliants, it depends on your skin type and what you want from your scrub experience. Sugar is gentler because it has "round" granules. If your skin is sensitive sugar is for you. Salt, can be a bit tougher and really helps get rid of dry skin buildup. Another benefit of salt is it helps removes toxins from your body.

All our scrubs contain a blend of oils, hand harvested botanicals and wildcrafted Maine seaweeds. The addition of Maine seaweeds means you are detoxing and restocking all your trace vitamins and minerals every time you exfoliate. Regular use will leave your skin looking smooth and polished and function better because scrubs help increase circulation.

Scrubs are designed for shower use. Try not to take super hot showers because the heat can dry out your skin.

Heading to the Beach?

Before you head to the beach make sure you pack a wide brimmed hat. I don't like hat head but keeping the sun ray's off your face is important. And pack a salad. Salads are a treat this time of year with all the fresh tasty produce but there is some scientific evidence that taking Vitamin C and E orally can help prevent sunburn. The WebMD sight list this combo as "possibly effective". Who really knows- but a salad rich in citrus, tomatoes and some nuts is sure to be tasty. For some more food ideas to help ward off sunburn check out this article "12 Superfoods That Can Help Prevent Skin Damage". If you do get a sunburn, try our Seaweed Packs for Sunburn and Stress. We recommend wetting the seaweed and placing it directly on your sunburn, cooling, refreshing and oh so healing.

Wine and Chocolate for Great Skin!

After the beach, sip some wine.

White can be especially refreshing but reds are more healing. Reds contain "resveratol"a natural phenol. This is important because resveratol is an antioxidant and helps capture free radicals. Free radicals are bad because they go after stable molecules and cause havoc. Which means red wine is a health drink! If you want some summer red recommendations check out this article What Kind of Red Wines Should I Drink This Summer? A chilled Beaujolais sounds yummy! To be really healthy add some dark chocolate, rich in "flavanoids". Falvanoids are plant based compounds rich in antioxidants. Of course, moderation, moderation, moderation especially with wine and chocolate or you'll be needing our Hangover Smelling Salts the next day.

But to my surprise the ingredients are only part of the problem. I was surprised and saddened by the amount of plastic packaging found in the soap aisle of my local grocery store. First, liquid soaps have taken over from bar soaps. There may be times when liquid makes practical sense but it's not good for our environment. Bottle after bottle of plastic to keep us clean while our world gets more polluted.

Even bar soaps packaged in cardboard boxes were wrapped in plastic. It's really tough to reduce your plastic consumption and one easy way is to use a hand crafted, low packaged bar of soap.

The roses are starting to bloom on the mainland. They will be a little later out on Gotts Island and this is always such a sweet time of year.

At Dulse & Rugosa we use some form of rose in just about every product we make, but some products are especially rich in Maine roses. The roses we use are the Rugosa Rose. While not native to Maine and perhaps like the beloved lupine considered invasive, the "beach rose" is part of the seashore in Maine. Starting with the scented petals of deep pink and white by fall the rose hips provide much needed Vitamin C for anyone facing a Maine winter. Rose hips are nutritious and delicious in teas and jams.

One major benefit of roses is their scent. It is such a natural, sweet but not cloying scent and no matter the weather evokes a sunny day by the ocean. Carly has created a rose petal rich roll on perfume oil designed to help calm and relieve tension. The base is Calendula infused sweet almond oil enriched with lavender and peppermint essential oils and sweetened with rose and chamomile petals. One of the benefits of being "skincare chefs" is mixing up wholesome goodies for your skin. Headache oil is aromatherapy for you, not the room.

Our Island Face Scrub is also rich in handpicked Maine island roses. Our gentle face scrub is beneficial to all skin types but especially helpful for breakouts. Roses have an anti-bacterial property that can help calm irritated skin. When you combine the power of rose petals with the magic of Maine seaweeds you have a gentle yet effective combination of natural ingredients to keep your face clear and happy. Natural ingredients are a more effective and safer way to fight pimples then using weird chemical that have the potential to be harmful.

Another way we utilize the benefits of rose petals in in our Rose Witch Hazel. This is an infusion of rose petals into witch hazel and the results are divine with a heavenly scent. Witch hazel is another wonderful product for acne prone skin. Try our Rose Petal Witch Hazel to spot treat an annoying pimple, as a face toner after a hot, sticky day or dab on irritated skin.

Our Rose Petal Witch Hazel is the base for our Rose Petal Creme which is a great creme for faces that need a bit of moisture but not too much. It's light, creamy with a dreamy rose scent.

Treat yourself and your skin to the gift of rose petals.

As always, we want to thank you for supporting our small business. Reading our blog, following us on social media and especially purchasing our products keeps our small business in business.